Stasis Lock
by Illusionna
Summary: With the 3rd Cybertronian Civil War just beginning, there are those who have still not chosen sides, The Neutrals. Their lives are intertwined with both the Autobots and the Decepticons. This is one femme's tale of how the push and pull of both sides both saves and destroys lives.
1. Chapter 1

"And through unification, Cybertron can once again be the strong, thriving civilization it once was!" The crowd roared, and the speaker on the stage soaked in the applause with a smug smile on his faceplates. He held up a gray hand to silence the crowd, and continued. "To bring our level of civilization to other species is the greatest gift we can give! How can we do so if we do not venture out? How can we call ourselves a great race if we do not share the gifts that we have received through our eons of evolution?" Again the crowd roared as the Transformer looked about himself slowly, like the second hand of a clock ticking when the battery in the watch is going dead. This time he allowed the crowd to quiet on its own. "My fellow Transformers—"he paused, his gravelly voice hung in the air, thick and cold. "Optimus Prime," again he paused, bringing one of his hand modules in front of him. It seemed to dangle from his silver arm, a fusion cannon hanging above it as if suspended by the speaker's very presence. His fiery red optics glared with disgust, framed in a gray visage. "—has no such ambitions. He desires neither reunification nor expansion! He would hoard the height we have attained. He would hoard the knowledge of our evolution. He would hoard our energy!" The crowd erupted in the cacophony of sound, strong as the crest of a wave pounding against the shore.

_Energy!_ Illusionna hopped down from her perch, her rosy gray feet clinking ever so slightly on the ground. She left the amphitheater through one of the side entrances, the acoustics of the outdoor stadium sending the voice of the speaker to her audio receptors far down the causeway.

The lane was wide, made for several vehicles to come through abreast. The rationing station rose out of the road, breaching the horizon as she approached it. The speaker's voice no longer came to her, having been absorbed by the distance quick legs carried her. Her violet optics glanced upward, spying the 'Polyhex 1862' sign, the rationing station's designation.

She skipped up to the window and handed the small chip in her slender fingers to the rationing drone. He looked at her with no expression in its amber optics. "I don't remember you." Its voice was as monotonous as its faceplates.

Illusionna merely shrugged as she watched it insert the chip into the collection slot. A small screen beeped to the drone's left. It moved over to it, revealing a depleted stack of energon cubes at the back of the station. Her optics glued to them greedily, her hand gripped the wall with a force strong enough to set off pain emitters.

"This isn't your rationing station," the drone's voice wasn't expressionless anymore. It hinted at the slivers of pain that had just scored up her arm. Tearing her optics away from the energon cubes, she looked at the drone, gathering her thoughts.

"I came to listen to the speech," she said after a moment. Her voice was high pitched; the chattering of a Lilith bird put into words.

The drone made a derisive clicking sound. "Seven in your household?" it asked, looking up from the screen, amber optics glowing threateningly.

"My creator runs a school," Illusionna replied, not looking away from the drone.

"You haven't been to your rationing station in forty eight cycles." The drone came back to the counter, without the chip.

"My rationing station runs out," she answered in a voice as smooth as a mercury stream.

The drone reached behind it, taking her allotment of energon cubes. Illusionna opened her chest compartment and took out a small box. The box transformed into wagon mode, a bright blue, contrasting greatly to the mottled gray of her surroundings. She took the nine cubes from the counter, put them in her cyan wagon, and nodded her head. "Thank you," she remembered to say, before going back to the way she had come.

The speaker had finished his speech by the time Illusionna came back to the amphitheater once more. Pushing her wagon in front of her and got on and off the transitway with little trouble.

Exiting the transit carrier alone, she surveyed her surrounds. The Dead End transit stop had only one tube carrying into it, the other having been destroyed or rerouted a long time ago. As far as the optic could see, the transit tube that brought her here stretched into the distance, one end leading to Polyhex, the other to Iacon. Though the one to Iacon was blocked before the tube reached the border. With the eternal lack of sunlight, The Dead End was never fully lit. Only a few of the public lights still worked, and the starlight from the always dark sky did little to light the alleyways. The lack of lighting in the Dead End made it an even more dangerous place. It added the air of mystery and fear to the stories that made their way to both Polyhex and Iacon. It was not called the Dead End for no reason.

But this was Illusionna's home, so she got off the carrier and began pushing her little blue wagon in front of her again. She noticed, but paid little attention to, the Transformer leaning against a dead lamppost until he said, "Looks like you hit a jackpot." His synthesizer was made of sandpaper, emanating a low, menacing sound. Illusionna turned to see he had straightened, both of his feet planted firmly on the hard metal ground.

She turned her entire body to him. Her violet optics began to glow slightly in threat. "My jackpot," she told him, emphasizing each syllable.

His teal paint was scuffed off several plates on his body, his matching teal optic visor glowed with a bright intensity, trying to outdo the threatening gesture Illusionna had shot his way. His hand came to his optics, rubbing the side of his visor. "A big jackpot," he mused.

"Go to the rationing depot like the rest of us," she waved her hand dismissively, being sure to keep the threat of her optics glowing. He was too close to her, she had nowhere to run for cover, not with the cubes. The streets were not empty, they never were, but she was well aware that no one would come to her aid in an altercation.

Her optics grazed his chassis, he did not appear to have any weapons on his person. Though projectiles were only military issue, more of the civilian population boasted having them than the Autobots or Decepticons liked.

He proved her knowledge correct by causing his hand to retract, replacing it with a long blade, double edged and shining in the dim light. She made a loud clicking noise, it echoed slightly against the rubble, but was drowned out by the echo of metal sliding against metal. Four blades, one from each elbow cuff and from each knee, extracted with a slow, threatening precision from Illusionna's body. She bent her legs in a fighting stance. _Please, let him be alone_ she prayed, _I can't handle more than one._

He made a lunge at her, she sidestepped to the left and dodged the attack easily. Turning on his heel, he struck forward with another lunge, his sword swinging upwards toward her body. She raised her arm to deflect the blow. A brief pop of sparks and the burning of her pain receptors told her that edge had run along the length of her arm. She continued through with the maneuver, ignoring the urge to grab at the damage, pivoting through the attack and catching the back of her attacker's head with the palm of her hand. The screech and grind of metal on metal as the mech slid forward onto his knees reverberated off the buildings. He paused. Illusionna did not have to wait long for the next attack, as the mech took a desperate thrust. Illusionna ducked under the high and wild blow. Reaching up, she caught her attacker's arm and pulled it out to the side. Jumping up, she countered with a knee kick to the back of the mech's elbow joint. The crack of breaking metal echoed and was soon followed by the flow of fuel leaking out onto to the dirty ground from the now useless arm.  
>Illusionna left him, running to her wagon, to find two cubes gone. She swore, a flash of anger, white hot and quick, flowed through her. But she could see no perpetrator anywhere, only the street, the same people watching her, optics hungry for the wagon's bounty. But none of them appeared to have moved to take any of it. She swore again, her voice slicing through the hum of the voices that carried on the air, and pushed her wagon through the Dead End to her front door.<p>

The blast of voices hit her as she opened the front door. "No, no, it's not like that all!" Spanner's synthesizer, deep and enthusiastic, carried to the entryway of the three-leveled building. The ground level held the entry, Spanner's workshop, and the great room, where guests were received. It was to the latter that Illusionna made her way.

"It's impossible," she entered the receiving room to see Spanner, his amber and gold color scheme gleaming like a small star in the pale light, sitting across from another Transformer. It was he who was speaking, "They would be crushed by the compression of gravity. They would come out the other side a mangled ball." The Transformer turned when he heard her enter the room. His blue optics flashed slightly upon catching sight of her; she stepped back and looked at him hard. He wore a face shield which showed only his nose, and he had two emitters on the side of his head that flashed as he spoke. He seemed dull and lifeless, white and gray with accents of red and green, next to the shining Spanner.

"Ah, Luna," Spanner stood up and greeted Illusionna by her pet name, "you're home." He turned to his guest on the reclining couch. "Wheeljack, you have met Illusionna, no?" he asked, putting his arm about her and pushing her forward slightly.

"No, I do not believe I have had the pleasure." He stood up and extended his hand to her. Illusionna took his forearm gingerly in greeting, only to have her own grasped in a hold that bordered on painful. She was thankful it wasn't her hurt arm. "Is she yours?" Wheeljack asked Spanner, his optics leaving the youth before him, his hand dropping her arm abruptly.

"Yes," Spanner beamed, running a hand over Illusionna's headplate. "She's my newest." He smiled at her again, and urged her toward the hall, "Put the energon away, Illusionna," his voice was gentle as he addressed her, "and we'll talk later."

She looked at her creator for a long moment, before nodding her head to him, her violet optics turning briefly to Wheeljack to give him a polite nod in leaving. After turning away, she heard their voices once more, arguing some sort of scientific principle. "I don't see how it can be done Spanner," she heard Wheeljack's voice carry down the hall "I think you're dreaming."

She took the cubes to the lower section of the house, the one that lay underground. Here were the numerous storerooms, the personal chambers, and the lab. She opened the door to the storeroom designated for the energon, the door hissing open as she touched the button on the opening pad. _I wonder if that was one of Spanner's benefactors,_ she wondered. She wasn't too sure how benefaction worked. She knew it was different than hiring out your services, as her creator got 'paid' for times when he did not produce anything. But there were enough times that he did produce a product or information of some kind that it seemed like a service job to her. Upon mentioning this to her creator, he had sternly informed her that they did not live in a service household, that he had benefactors who supplied him with needed energon and equipment. But she was never able to figure out why and had never gained the courage to ask. She placed the cubes in the room, which had been full at one time, but now looked sparse with only seven energon cubes in it. Dumb rationing. _At least we have energon,_ she reminded herself, shivering slightly as she remembered her encounter at the transit station. Her arm has begun to ache, and she put her hand to it. There was no fluid leaking, only a nasty crack up the outer side of the plating. Her internal diagnostic, which she had not consulted until now, told her it was a minor wound and was being repaired by her internal systems.

She could still hear Spanner's and Wheeljack's muffled voices waft down the tunnel to the bottom level of the house. _Wonder what they're talking about_. Most of the time she didn't know what 'they' were discussing. She simply didn't have the same handle on physics that Spanner did. She helped him to build several things, kept his workshop organized, even helped when he had talks and symposiums.

They didn't happen so much anymore. The fighting between the Autobots and Decepticons was growing worse with each cycle. She heard many people speaking of full scale war breaking out. As it was, more civilians were getting their hands on weapons. No projectiles, however, had found their way into Spanner's household. And neither did the energon. It seemed that most of Spanner's 'benefactors' were now financing the war effort, and not scientific endeavors.

She opened the door to the downstairs common room that connected to the laboratory. Wind Rider, her sleek, gray body splayed out on a reclining couch, polished her arm with a polishing cloth. She didn't even look up when she said, "How many did you get?"

Illusionna let built up air escape from her ducts in the Cybertronian equivalent of a sigh, "Nine," she answered, "but two were stolen."

"Stolen?" she asked.

Illusionna nodded her head, "When I got off the transitway."

"Who?" she asked, finally turning her violet optics toward Illusionna.

Illusionna sat down and shrugged her thin shoulders, "I don't know," she replied in a whine, "some mech."

Wind Rider made a derisive click, though she hadn't moved from the reclining couch she lay on. Her wings rested on the back while her body didn't quite make it to the back of the couch. "I can't believe how bad it's getting," her voice was low and carried easily across the room. "Can't people stand in line like the rest of us?" She continued to polish herself while she spoke.

"When was the last time you stood in line?" Illusionna snapped back, optics flaring. "We got seven cubes, we were only supposed to get five."

Wind Rider looked at her for a moment, and then turned back to polishing her body armor.

"Who's that mech upstairs?" Illusionna asked suddenly, coming full into the room, her own gray paint seeming rosy next to Wind Rider's.

"One of Spanner's people," she replied. "I think he's trying to organize some sort of symposium or something." A wave of her hand showed how she felt about it. She turned to Illusionna again. "Come here," she commanded. One of her long gray fingers motioned Illusionna toward her, "You look like you live in the Dead End."

"We do live in the Dead End," was the inevitable reply.

"We don't have to _look_ like it," Wind Rider told her. She began with one of Illusionna's feet, dipping the cloth in compound and rubbing the paint to a hard, shiny, glow. "Who stole your cubes?" she asked again.

"I don't know," Illusionna said, shrugging her shoulders. "I didn't recognize him. He didn't come from Abscess Bay."

"I bet he came from Latency Transit," Wind Rider replied. "A bomb leveled it yesterday."

"There aren't any buildings left?" Illusionna's voice rose as she spoke.

Wind Rider nodded her head. "It has no upright buildings left. It's all underground. Now it fits all the mechanoids who live in it." Her hand unit worked its way up Illusionna's dirty legs.

"They can't help they're bombed," Illusionna interjected, "It's not their fault."

"They're all vagabonds. They're like the bums that hang around the transitway stations. Except they roam in gangs. At least this way their activity is forced under the surface."

"You don't think they'll make it here, do you?" Illusionna asked, her high pitched voice lilting.

"No," Wind Rider answered. "They might make it to Transitway 5, but they won't make it all the way here."

Both their heads turned as the door hissed open, to reveal the citrine glow of Spanner, as always his entrance lit the room up like a bulb. His optics locked on Illusionna. "How many did you get?"

"Nine," she replied quietly, twisting her mouth, "but two were stolen." She turned her head sideways to look at him from the side of her optics.

Spanner sighed, a long, low gust of air escaping his cooling ducts. "Seven, eh?" There was a moment of awkward silence before he continued, "How did two get stolen?"

She stared at him for a moment, her optics dim. "A mech attacked me," she put her hands up in front of her, "I couldn't help it."

For a moment there was a vacuum in the room, not even the sound of Wind Rider rubbing Illusionna's leg could be heard. "Two cubes is a lot of energon," Spanner muttered, resting a hand on his cranial unit. "Come up then," he turned on one golden foot, "and recharge."


	2. Chapter 2

The constellations overhead moved with the slowness of forever, so even the all-patient no longer watched the heavens. But Illusionna had not been online all that long, and so she'd not yet gotten used to the constellations that changed always as Cybertron wandered around, aimlessly, through the ether. She had the entire sky mapped out in her memory circuits, but she was still too new to notice much of a shift in the stars.

A patterned 'clank-clank, clank-clank' brought her attention from the stars to the street. Through the broken down, barely above ground buildings she could see a long line of Transformers marching toward her. They marched like a collective, as if they all shared the same mind and it told them when to move their feet and their arms in their march. Their clanking echoed off of the empty rubble. As the Transformers, two by two, passed her, she noticed they all wore Decepticon symbols and had similar colored armor. "Foot soldiers," she said out loud. None of them turned to look at her.

She heard a roar above her, and turned her head up to look. A formation of jets flew passed, the largest she had ever seen. Like the foot soldiers, it seemed they all acted in the same way, their triple spikes connecting them in some way so they moved across the dark sky as one being, blocking out the stars.

She looked back to the line of marchers and noticed one Transformer who wasn't in line. She recognized him instantly. He glanced at her and they locked optics, her fuel pump felt as if it jumped in her chest cavity. His red optics glared for a moment, before he turned back to face forward. His large silver frame stood rigid as he marched, the cannon attached to his arm making him look all the more formidable. The way he shined reminded Illusionna of Spanner, one golden, the other a molten silver. Only his shine seemed cleaner, not a shine of oiled salve used with a cloth, but a sheen, as if it was a part of his paint, a solid sheet of mercury in the shape of a Transformer. He was the Decepticon she had seen in the gladiator auditorium at Polyhex, speaking against Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots. She jumped down from the empty barrel she was sitting on. _A gang is going to jump him being out of the line like that,_ she thought. _No,_ her own voice in her head shot back, _no one would jump that mech. _He was...her CPU could not come up with a word to describe him.

She watched the soldiers' backs as they marched, like mindless mechanoids, until they were out of sight. She could still hear them marching, though the roar of the jets was now out of her audio range. _I wonder where they're going,_ she cocked her head to the side, _Polyhex is the other direction. _She shrugged and turned to go home.

Wind Rider was in the receiving room when she got there. Her voice was a soft hum, "I'm surprised we even have what we still do," Wind Rider said, "he's going to drive us all into ruin." She paused, and shook her head, "No," she corrected herself, "we are already in ruin."

"What do you mean?" Illusionna asked, leaning forward toward her.

"We're going to have to do something about it, and soon," Wind Rider went on, "or we're not going to have anything. Period."

"Why aren't we going to have anything?" Illusionna asked.

"Because he keeps using it all up," Wind Rider's voice dripped with venom, and she finally looked up at her sister. "The Decepticons have attacked Iacon."

Illusionna wasn't sure her audio receptors were working correctly. "What?!"

"The Decepticons attacked Iacon," Wind Rider repeated. "Today, with soldiers and firearms."

"How do you know?"

Wind Rider said nothing, but rather turned on the vid-com to the general Iacon station. It cracked a bit before it came in clear, "this…still…onslaught. This unprovoked attacked has left most buildings leveled. Our current count of fatalities, as of a moment ago, is up to 103."

They both listened to the reporter, neither of them could ever remember the 'vid' part of the vid-com working.

"Fatalities," Illusionna muttered, "103 Transformers are permanently offline?"

Wind Rider nodded.

The reporter droned on, oblivious to his listeners, "The attacks seem to be slackening off, as those Autobots with firearms has dwindled to almost nothing. One can only ask why this has happened and what Optimus Prime will do concerning Megatron, the leader of the Decepticon military and political factions."

"What does that mean?" Illusionna asked.

"The waste is going to leak into the energon," Wind Rider muttered.

"Wind Rider!" Spanner's voice came through the open door from the workshop. "Come back."

Wind Rider let out a hiss of air from her ducts. "I thought I had escaped him," she muttered. "Don't you care that the war is coming!" she yelled in his direction.

Spanner appeared at the doorway. "The war isn't coming here," he said calmly, "the Autobots and Decepticons are at war."

"The Autobots and Decepticons are the ones who fund you!" Wind Rider spat at him.

"Not anymore," Illusionna muttered.

Spanner shot her a murderous look, his golden optics glowing so brightly that his whole faceplate glowed. "We will have no trouble finding funding once I finish this project."

"You've been working on this project forever," Wind Rider said, her deep voice quiet. "Spanner, we need energon now and the war is coming here, now."

"The war is not coming here," Spanner repeated. "The Autobots and Decepticons are at war. The Dead End is in neither of their jurisdictions."

"That's because no one wants the Dead End," Wind Rider said.

The room was silent. Spanner stared at Illusionna and Wind Rider, his optics still glowing.

"I like the Dead End," Illusionna muttered.

Wind Rider let out a hiss of air from her cooling ducts and raised her hands in defeat. "You would," she snapped, turning in the air and floating out of the room. Illusionna heard the front door shut.

"Come one Luna," Spanner said, Illusionna turned her head to see him re-enter the workshop. "We have work to do."

**OoOoOo**

Illusionna watched the soldiers march past, their deep purple Decepticon symbols glaring on their clean, shiny chasses. It was almost a common sight now. Almost.

"Your turn," Ji'shada thunked her arm.

She turned to him, her optics glowing slightly.

Ji'shada's deep red color glowed like hot embers underneath the dust and soot which caked it. "Why do you watch them all the time?" he asked, handing her the small, asymmetrical piece of rubble.

"They're interesting," she answered, throwing it onto the game board they had burned into the surface of the planet.

"How are they interesting?" he asked, handing over three of his 'energon chips', also pieces of rubble. "All they do is march. They don't talk to you, even when you talk to them. They don't help anyone either."

Illusionna rolled again. "I wonder why they go to Iacon."

"To obliterate it, obviously," he held his hand out for his 'energon chips'.

"But why?" Illusionna handed him her rounded pieces of junk and the roller.

"You wonder too much," he rolled again and hissed.

"What drives them?" she wasn't paying attention to Ji'shada's poor roll. Her violet optics looked down the street where the soldiers had been. "Surely reunification can't be that important."

"Reunification?" Ji'shada thumped her on the arm again. "What are you talking about?"

"Reunification," Illusionna muttered, but she waved her hand at him when she saw the confusion on his faceplates. "Never mind," she drawled, "you don't know anything."

"I know I don't want to be a Decepticon," he shot.

"Why not?" she rolled the piece of metal too hard and knocking it off the board. "They're clean and they have energon." She stared at him for a moment, "Their lives can't be that bad." Ji'shada merely stared back at her. She made an angry click and stood up, "I'm going home." She was a good ten strides away from him when he finally stood up.

"Wait Illusionna," he called, running to catch her, "wait." When she didn't stop at the voice of her playmate, he grabbed her arm. "C'mon," he said soothingly. She cocked her head to the side. "I didn't mean anything." She watched him for a long moment, before shrugging her rosy-gray shoulders. "Hey," he said, his faceplates brightening at his idea. "Why don't we go to Iacon?"

"Shada," she held her hands up, "the Decepticons are invading it!"

"So," Ji'shada shrugged, "that doesn't mean we can't watch."

"They're killing Autobots," Illusionna's voice sank. Ji'shada's household obviously didn't have a vid-com.

"We're not Autobots," he countered, waving his hand for her to come, "we can see what they're doing."

When Illusionna didn't move, he added, "Maybe you can see what drives them?" Illusionna's optics glowed momentarily at what she took to be a barb. But the glow quickly faded. "We'll be safe," he said, "we're not Autobots."

"Alright," she replied, walking toward him. Ji'shada transformed into his passenger vehicle mode. Illusionna laughed as she climbed on the seat. "We'll get there in style."

"Of course," he replied, speeding off the same direction the soldiers had gone.

Iacon now looked like the Dead End. Ji'shada transformed when they reached the border of the Autobot city-state. Only, they couldn't tell the difference anymore. "This is where the Petrosystems Building should be," Illusionna muttered. Instead of the large business complex that had once been there, the landscape was almost flat. Craters in the surface of the planet made pathways several stories into the interior. Some were no larger than a hand unit, others were large enough for a mechanoid to fall inside. Illusionna and Ji'shada peered in one, the sounds of artillery in the distance, to see that several mechs had not avoided the hole.

"You think they're offline?" Ji'shada murmered.

Illusionna was silent for a moment. "Hello," she called into the crater, listening as her voice echoed. No answer. She glanced at Ji'shada, who merely shrugged his shoulders. She turned on the camera that sat on her shoulder, it emitted a soft pink light, and bent over to shine it down the hole. It illuminated the face of an Autobot, she could see his symbol at the edge of the light. Half of his faceplates had been melted, the liquid metal sinking into the circuitry behind his faceplate. The camera that had been his optic sensor glowed with a pale, pink light, staring at them lifelessly. "Oh!" Illusionna cried, jumping to her feet and backing away from the crater. She looked up to see Ji'shada had done the same thing, his mouth agape. "I want to go home," she told him, her voice entirely too loud in her audio receptors.

Ji'shada didn't argue with her as he transformed.


	3. Chapter 3

"Where have you been?" Wind Rider asked as Illusionna entered the great room of the house.

"Out," was all that Illusionna replied, flopping down on the couch.

"Out where?"

There was a moment of silence, the sound of Wind Rider polishing her arm made a soft swooshing noise as the ointment was rubbed into her metal skin. "Just out," Illusionna said, her voice tight.

"Well excuse me!" Wind Rider leaned back out, "I was just worried about you," her face was a caricature of concern.

"Yeah right," Illusionna stood up and headed toward the door to the workshop where she could hear one of Spanner's tools whirring away.

"Hey, come back," Wind Rider called.

Illusionna ignored her, and as the door closed behind her she heard her sibling say, "Well, someone's in a bad mood."

_You'd be in a bad mood too if you just saw a dead Transformer_, she wanted to hiss but she kept silent. She felt a strong compulsion to _not_ tell anyone about her and Ji'Shada's recent outing.

She walked up to Spanner, past the several bodies of unfinished Transformers that he had begun to build. Most of them were older than Illusionna herself, and were nothing more than metal frames upon which wires had been connected. One of them had a head, with both of its lenses for its optics in place. It stared out in front of it blankly, catching the glint of the blowtorch Spanner used. But his blank look was of one that had always been lifeless, never given the spark of consciousness. It was remarkably different from the mech she had seen in the hole, but she couldn't articulate how.

An energon cube lay on the floor, a tube attached to it leading the blow torch that Spanner held up against a machine. He looked up and smiled, "Ah, just what I needed," he motioned her toward him, "you can hold this piece in place."

Illusionna took the slat of metal from him, and held it up against another one. "Are you building the body for it?" she asked, her voice raised a bit to be heard over the blowtorch.

"Yes," Spanner replied, his optics glued to the spot her was welding.

Illusionna looked about, "Where are your other prototypes?" she asked, but Spanner either didn't hear her, or didn't deign to answer. For all Illusionna knew, he had used the parts in the other three prototypes to make up this one. After all, they had all failed so far. "Are you almost done with this one?" she asked, making sure he heard her.

"Oh no, darling," he replied, chuckling at the absurdity of such a statement. "There is still a long way to go."

"Have you tested it yet?" Illusionna shifted on her feet, making the slat of metal move.

Spanner looked up at her. "No," he turned back to the welding. "I have to have these pieces in place to protect the circuitry."

"Do you think it will work?"

"Do _you_ think it will work?" Spanner countered.

_No,_ Illusionna wanted to answer, "I hope so," she told him. Spanner was an idealist, she knew, and thought that all of his crazy inventions would work. A good number of them did, he could have argued back at her, but it did them little good nowadays. _He needs to _

_make weapons or something,_ Illusionna clicked to herself derisively, _or something that creates energon._

Spanner looked up at her click with a stern look on his faceplate. Illusionna dimmed her optics and looked away from him, wishing, for not the first time, that the workshop had a door that led to the outside. This conversation wasn't going much better than the one with Wind Rider. She looked down at the energon cube in silence, watching the level of the pale swirling pink and blue liquid slowly go down. It was almost empty when she saw it wave against the side of the cube.

Illusionna thought she had a glitch in her optics for a moment, turned away and then looked backed at it. The tube sucked up the last of the energon and the blowtorch went out. _It couldn't have moved,_ she thought to herself, _how would it have_.

Suddenly, the entire workshop waved from side to side, and a deafening BOOM blew through her audio sensors. Both Spanner and Illusionna froze, staring at each other in confusion, Spanner's golden optics glowing brightly.

BOOM! The workshop moved again, and items began falling off of the walls and the table. Spanner grabbed Illusionna's hand, and ran to the door. BOOM! The room shook again, and one of the unfinished bodies toppled to the ground.

Illusionna tripped over something, lost her grip on Spanner and fell against the door. She saw a yellow hand grip her arm. "Spanner!" she cried, but her voice was drowned out by another BOOM as he dragged her through the door into the great room.

"Get underground!" Spanner yelled, pushing Wind Rider toward to the hallway. The front door opened, and Wind Rider fell through it, just catching herself before she hit the ground.

They all rushed down the stairs, and ran into the first room they came upon, the study. When the door was closed, another BOOM shook the building and the lights went out. Sparks came from the corner of the room, and Spanner held up his hand, electricity running between his fingers, illuminating the small room in a dim glow.

"What's happening?" Illusionna asked, her violet optics glowed almost as brightly as Spanner's hand.

"We're being bombed," Wind Rider said, her own optics flaring.

"Why are the Decepticons bombing us?" Illusionna turned to her, her mouth twisted in

fear.

"They're not," Wind Rider sank down against the wall, until her aft hit the floor. "They're coming from Iacon."

The bombing lasted for hours. The three of them fell into a sullen silence, punctuated by the darkness of the room and the muffled BOOMS that made their way down to their level. But, eventually, the booming stopped, and they felt safe enough to emerge from hiding.

As they climbed the stairs, the smell of scorched metal met their olfactory sensors. The great room was still intact, albeit rather messy. Wind Rider opened the front door and levitated outside. "Oh!" she exclaimed, the other two crammed through the doorway to her.

The top level of the house was gone. Support beams that had held up the walls were nothing more than stumps protruding from the roof. Spanner backed up to the other side of Abscess Bay to get a better look at the destruction.

"Our house," Illusionna's voice was quiet and small. "Half of it is gone."

Spanner didn't say anything. He simply stared, an anxious look on his faceplate, at what had once been the second story of his dwelling.

Illusionna walked down Abscess Bay, passing her own house, avoiding pot holes, some of which went several layers below ground. Turning down Abrogate Lane to a main thoroughfare, she began to wend her way back through smaller side streets, dragging her little wagon of energon cubes behind her. No one was around these days, if someone decided to loiter, it was usually underground, away from any missiles or bombs that might come their way. The Dead End was a relatively flat place, rarely having buildings higher than one story above ground. Now, sections of it looked inverted, gaping spaces, open-mouthed to the eternally dark sky. Illusionna made it a point not to look into them.

She arrived at Ji'Shada's house, or the remains of it. All that was left of the one story building was the south facing wall, standing erect among the rubble. Illusionna stood at the periphery of the debris, debating her next move. If she found survivors, she did not have enough energon to repair any damage done to them. She had no desire to look into the face of a Transformer that had gone offline; dead, lifeless optics staring at nothing like darkened windows. So she turned from what was left of her friend's dwelling and headed back to her own home, trailing her energon behind her. She still wasn't used to the second story of her house being gone, with its one beam pointing toward the stars. She opened the front door, and nearly rammed down by Wind Rider.

"You're back!" she plucked up an energon cube, and bringing it to her faceplate.

Spanner walked up calmly, as if his own internal recharging mechanism wasn't screaming at him to refuel. "There are only three cubes, Illusionna," he noted when he got to the wagon.

Illusionna was silent for a long moment, and Wind Rider stopped her recharging to look at Spanner. "That's all he gave me," Illusionna murmured, her optics dimmed to almost lightlessness.

"He only gave you three?" Spanner's voice was incredulous, he drew his golden shoulders square and his amber optics flashed. "That's only one cube a person."

"That's all we're supposed to get," Wind Rider interjected, even her smooth, deep voice showing a hint of nervousness at her creator's actions. She backed up a pace, however, when Spanner shot her a look of anger, his mouth puckered and his optics bright.

"Didn't you manipulate the chip?" Spanner turned back to Illusionna, his voice rising with every word.

"I did!" she raised her hands in defence, waving them softly, "they've cut the rations again. He said if I wanted more energon, I had to get out and earn it like other mechs!" Her voice was panicked, and her back was against the closed front door.

"Earn it?!" Spanner's voice exploded like a laser from a pistol. "Do I not work, to earn this energon?" He kicked the wagon over, sending the last two cubes skidding across the floor to bump into the wall with quiet thunks.

"I'm just telling you what he said," Illusionna's voice was shrill, "he said the ration's been cut off to ½ a cube per mech per cycle!"

"That's still twice as much as we were supposed to get," Wind Rider's voice broke through before Spanner could speak again, "she did manipulate the chip."

Spanner turned to her, the same angry look on his faceplate. "This isn't enough to work with," his voice was now tight and strained, "it's barely enough to refuel on."

"It's not Illusionna's fault," she said, "we're all edgy lately." When Spanner said nothing, she continued, "With all the stuff that's happened, we're all just jumpy."

Spanner slowly turned from her toward the two energon cubes he had kicked down the hallway. "Put those away," he motioned with one of his buttercream hand units. "We'll have to share these for now."

In the courtyard of the Conduit, the energon fountain, which had never had energon in it as far as Illusionna could tell, loomed empty and broken, like everything else in the Dead End. Wind Rider claimed that there had once been a ball on the top tier of the fountain, but someone had stolen it before Illusionna came online. "Why would someone want a big metal ball?" she had asked.

"Why would someone want to take anything that was not valuable?" Wind Rider countered. When she got no reply, she answered, "Because people are stupid."

The huge double doors stood open, as they always did. Above them, inscribed in the wall of the building was the saying "The Light is never further than your optics." It didn't matter how many times someone asked one of voices what it meant, a straight answer was never given. Illusionna figured that the voices didn't know what it meant either.

Wind Rider had Illusionna by the hand unit, and floated above the decorated ground at a leisurely pace. The courtyard was already busy with speakers, people talking with people they hadn't seen since the last time they had congregated at the Conduit. By the fountain stood a group of people Illusionna didn't recognize. They weren't regular speakers at this Conduit, or she would have known them instantly. After all, she had come online here, and attended the Conduit every congregation ever since. But as one of them moved, his arms waving as he spoke to someone, she saw a red, blue and gray Transformer leaning against the middle tier of the fountain. His helmet framed his gray faceplate and wing extended from his back, as if framing his body as a work of art. He was a generic body type, as where his two companions, the kind that transformed into a tri-flyer. On each of his wings was a Decepticon symbol. His head turned to her direction, and his scarlet optics caught hers. She had slowed enough that Wind Rider noticed she was dawdling, and turned to her, "What's the matter?"

"That mech," Illusionna pointed with her head to the Transformer. "He's looking at us."

Wind Rider clicked, obviously not impressed, but then the blue Transformer's gaze shifted from Illusionna to Wind Rider. Wind Rider stopped her forward momentum to come to a stop as she looked at him. "What's he doing here, I wonder?" she muttered, her voice very soft. Illusionna knew that she wasn't asking for an answer, so she remained silent. Then, Wind Rider shook her head, and began floating forward again, in through the double doors.

The room was stadium style, as all gathering places were. The slightly raised center was surrounded by chairs, each had an indentation in them, as if at one time they had cushions. They sat down as the people began milling in to the Conduit in full force.

The red, blue and gray Transformer saw where Wind Rider and Illusionna were sitting and motioned for his little entourage to follow him. They took their seats at the opposite end of the row that Wind Rider had chosen. He leaned forward, catching Wind Rider's optics again. She quickly looked away to the resting bed, where one of the Voices of Vector Sigma had gently tapped a small bell. The gathering room hushed, and people who had not yet sat down took seats as quietly as possible.

The Voice of Vector Sigma raised his hands above his head, "Children of Sigma," he called, "welcome!"

"Can't he come up with a better introduction?" Illusionna heard the people in front of her say, "he says that every time!"

"I know that many of you are confused and frightened at the recent events that have taken place." A hum went through the crowd at the understatement of his words, "Fear not!" Illusionna jumped at the loudness of his voice, "for even as the world seems to be shrouded in chaos, order will make its way back into our lives."

Illusionna didn't see how much order could come back into the lives of people who had no houses or no work or no energon. Where had this Voice of Vector Sigma been living? Certainly not in the Dead End. Did he not look outside the Conduit doors once in a while?

The Voice of Vector Sigma moved aside to reveal the dais that stood front and center of the gathering room. A large dent was on the side, it had been there when Illusionna laid upon it, and it had not yet been repaired as a new body lay upon it. Wires were connected at the side of it, and then lain an energon cube, three more were connected to it. Illusionna rubbed her back in memory at the connection falling away as she sat up for the first time, and excitement started to tingle through her.

The Voice of Vector Sigma's finger retracted to reveal a key, and inserted it into a slot on the dais. His optics flared and then dimmed. His faceplate went slack. Illusionna could not detect any vocal noise at all. The Voice stayed still, his dimmed optics looking straight ahead. She heard the three flyers begin to fidget. "This was a stupid-" one of them said.

"Arise!" shouted the Voice of Vector Sigma. Illusionna jumped, and heard the rattle of several other seats.

The energon on the dais began to slowly empty out of the cubes. The body on the table didn't move.

"Arise!" shouted the Voice again.

When the body still did move, the Voice of Vector Sigma raised his hands. "Speak, you gathered here, speak! Arise!"

"Arise!" the Conduit echoed with the sound of the voices those in the room.

"Again!" The second energon cube was now half empty.

"Arise!" the room boomed with the sound. "Arise! Arise!"

The third energon cube began to drain, and the Voice of Vector Sigma's optic flared again, his finger still inserted into the dais. "Arise, arise, arise!" the chant continued and the energy continued to drain from the cube.

The energon cube drained empty, and still the chant continued. The Voice of Vector Sigma extracted his hand from the table, and raised his arms, whirling to face the entire room. "Arise!" he shouted, his voice louder than the rest. "Arise!"

The body on the table remained still.

The Voice of Vector Sigma lowered his arms and the congregated Transformers fell silent. All optics remained on the body on the table.

"Arise and welcome!"

The body did not move.

"I told you this was a stupid idea," said one of the flyers sitting near Illusionna and Wind Rider, his voice having a slight chuckle to it. "This doesn't work."

Others began to talk and stand, the Voice of Vector Sigma looked down at the body on the table, on his faceplate a look of pity.

She turned to the Decepticons, and flashed her optics, "That was mean."

All three of the flyers turned to her, their helmeted heads in unison. "So?" answered the purple one.

"Illusionna," Wind Rider hissed, levitated to her side. "Hush."

"No," the red and blue one stepped forward. "Let her answer." She couldn't tell if his shrill voice was mocking or not.

"It was mean," she repeated, "we wanted him to come online."

"So did we," the Decepticon answered. "But it didn't work, did it?"

Illusionna had no rebuke.

"Come on," Wind Rider pulled her arm toward the door.

Illusionna turned and followed her sister out. She heard the purple one say, "Does it ever work, or is it just some stupid superstition these lug-nuts believe in?"

"It doesn't matter," Illusionna turned at the sound of a new voice. The blue flyer said, "we gotta find out where the Autobots stashed those weapons they stole."

The red, blue and gray one caught her optics with his and nodded. "Yes we do," he said.

_Everybody know that,_ Illusionna wanted to spit at them, but Wind Rider dragged her through the door back out to the courtyard. _ The lug-nuts._


	4. Chapter 4

The vidcom was always on now, and broke with a frustrating regularity. Wind Rider fixed it, Illusionna even got the video to work for a few seconds. It flickered, but as soon as Wind Rider began cheering, the picture faded. "The old thing still has juice in it," Illusionna announced proudly, despite the darkened screen.

A clunk sounded in the direction of the workshop. "When was the last time he came out of there?" Wind Rider asked, her face plate twisted in consternation.

"I don't know," Illusionna replied, still bent over the vidcom. "He feels he's close, I guess."

"He's felt he's close for ages now," she retorted. "He's not going to get one of those things to work."

Illusionna's chronometer indicated it was time for her recharge. Wind Rider was set on a different schedule that she, being that they were unequally efficient, but that didn't keep her from asking, "Do you want to energize with me?"

"I do," Wind Rider replied immediately. "It stinks that were rationed."

Illusionna could not recall a time when energon wasn't rationed, in fact, the only time she could remember being fully charged was when she came online. She could no longer recall the feeling of being fully charged, but she distinctly recalled her internal systems flashing at her, 'Energy level: 100%'. She opened the closet in the hallway and stopped. It was empty.

"Where's the energon?" Wind Rider demanded.

Illusionna just stared at the empty space in the closet.

"Where's the energon?" Wind Rider asked the closet again.

"I have to recharge," Illusionna muttered, her voice quiet.

Wind Rider floated down the hallway and back through the receiving room. She burst in to the workshop, the door sliding open and she through the entry before it was fully retracted. "Where's the energon?" her voice was high and shrill.

Spanner, shining like a golden sun, looked up from the small machine he was tinkering with on his worktable and tilted his head to the side. "In the closet, where it belongs."

"There is no energon in the closet," she seethed.

"Nonsense," Spanner, waved his hand, dismissively.

"I need to recharge," Illusionna her voice barely audible, as if lowering the volume on her voice box would conserve the precious energy she could feel being used in her body.

"We have none left!" Wind Rider's voice echoed off the walls of the workshop. "How could you use it all? What are we going to recharge with?"

"We'll make due," Spanner told her.

"W can't make due on nothing!" Wind Rider yelled at him, the anger in her voice causing her to sway back and forth, as if she teetered on the edge of a cliff.

"We will make due," Spanner repeated, his own voice beginning to lace with anger.

"I have to recharge," Illusionna said, her voice still quiet.

"How is she supposed to recharge?" Wind Rider motioned in Illusionna's direction, "when you used all of our energon on your stupid experiments!"

"It will be fine," Spanner's optics glowed.

"I have to recharge!" Illusionna let out a panicked wail. Both Wind Rider and Spanner turned their heads to look at her. For a moment, there was no sound at all in the workshop, as if the lifeless body by the door that watched Spanner's work had stolen her audio-receptors. Neither of them moved as they looked at her, and her perception of the room seemed to slow down. She regarded Wind Rider, who's faceplate seemed to melt from anger into panic, like metal melting in smelter. She then turned to Spanner, and his golden visage seemed to register worry, as if she'd announced that she was going to fly away and live on one of the Cybertron's moons. It was remote, and Illusionna thought, filled with pity.

She turned back to Wind Rider, "I need to recharge," she pleaded.

"Come on," Wind Rider grabbed her arm and dragged her out of the workshop.

"Where are we going?" she asked, stumbling along in an attempt to keep with Wind Rider's levitating.

"To recharge," she propelled them out the door into the debris of the street. She stopped suddenly, causing Illusionna to bump into her. She looked down both ways of the street and then began to levitate down it again, her hand still on Illusionna's shoulder.

"How?" Illusionna had to run to keep up with Wind Rider. Her hand slid down to Illusionna's arm as she turned down a side street.

Wind Rider didn't answer. She dragged Illusionna to a mechanoid that lay on the street, his scuffed paint and missing plates of armor telling them he was what they considered a 'loiterer', or someone with no dwelling. Illusionna was growing more panicked as her internal chronometer flashed in her optics that she needed to recharge. That's dumb to be on the surface, she thought through the panic as they approached the mechanoid, and it surprised her that she was able to do so. What if there is another attack?

Wind Rider kicked him when she got close enough, swinging her foot back and denting his side armor plate. "Hey!" he looked up at her, optics glowing.

Illusionna pulled away in confusion, and the phrase 'Stasis Lock Imminent. Recharge Immediately' flashed inside her CPU. Wind Rider let go of her arm and reached down to grab the mechanoid's chest. Illusionna watched in mild shock as Wind Rider stepped on both of the mech's arms, her sudden decent to the ground crushing them. With a strength Illusionna did not know Wind Rider possessed, she ripped open his chest cavity. Dropping his chest plate, she reached down again, grabbed his energon pump, and lifted it out of him. The sound of the tubes that connected it to the rest of his body popping mingled with his screams.

"Recharge!" Wind Rider commanded, pointing to where his fuel pump had been.

Illusionna looked down at him, watching already processed fuel flow out of his intake and outtake tubes. Again the phrase, 'Statis Lock Imminent. Recharge Immediately.' flashed on the inside of her head like a demon with her voice and inflection taunting her.

"Recharge!" Wind Rider said again, throwing his fuel pump across the street. Illusionna bent down and took his outtake tube in her mouth and began to recharge. 

**OoOoOo**

She stood under the overhang near the stadium in Polynex. A mech. lay in the street, circuits popping like a sparkler. The liquid falling from the sky came dangerously close to the edge of the overhang. Illusionna tried to back up and stepped on the foot of another mech. "Sorry," she mumbled, shifting sideways, she certainly wasn't going to move forward!

She still felt funny from feeding off that mech's fuel. It had made her body hum, almost as if she was vibrating, although Wind Rider had assured her afterward she was not shaking any that she could detect. It felt that she was quivering deep inside of her body, starting at her fuel pump in her solar plexus and moving throughout her trunk, and into her extremities. She had the faint impression, the same sort of background impression that told her what her body temperature was, or what her fuel level might be at the moment, that if she touched something, anything, it too would start vibrating in this same way. That if she touched the right thing, it would hum, getting louder as it spread until the entire world was humming and vibrating with the uncomfortable-ness that she felt. She tried very hard not to touch too many things. She didn't like the felt. She wondered if she'd feel this way forever, or if it would go away once she'd used the already half-synthesized energon flowing through her lines.

Upon returning home, they had found Spanner in the common room, sitting still with his hands on his knees. He turned his head slowly toward she and Wind Rider, a lost look on his face. His optics were barely lit, only a golden smolder behind the golden lens. "Ah," he said, in a tired voice, "you're back. I am going into rest mode. I wanted to let you two know before I did." He then stood up, and walked passed them. The stroked Wind Rider's cheek as he walked by, and she turned from him, a scowl marring her faceplate. He made no move or sound that he even noticed before dropping his hand and walking down the hall.

That unnerrved Illusionna almost as much as the buzzing in her system. Twice he had rested in a short time, and never before in her life had she known him to do so.

"It ain't supposed to be rainin' here," she heard someone toward the back of the crowd complain. "Can't those idiots seed the sky in the right place? We ain't nowhere near Iacon."

"They aren't going to be seeding the sky again after Megatron gets wind of this. He won't be happy with acid rain falling on a Decepticon province."

Acid rain, so that's what this stuff was called. Illusionna edged backward toward the conversation. She had never seen anything like these drops of neon green liquid falling from the sky. There had been a loud cracking noise and suddenly everyone had run to a shelter. Illusionna had thought it was a bomb exploding, and followed the crowds to the edge of the stadium. People were stuffed inside the numerous covered cubbies that the stadium overhangs created. She wondered what would happen to the mech. that hadn't made it undercover. Would he be fine when the rain stopped falling, or would he go offline? It looked painful, as he had thrashed against the ground before lying motionless, puddles of green raising around him.

"Shut up," she heard a familiar voice say, "You have no idea what Megatron will do."

She craned her head to see the Decepticon who had smiled at her and Wind Rider at the Temple.

"And you do?" his friend asked.

"Better than you," he replied.

"And I know if we don't find a way into the Iacon's main hall, Megatron will be a lot angrier than he will be over a little acid rain."

"How do they know the armory's in the main hall?" the first speaker asked.

"Intelligence says so."

"Intelligence knows they got weapons in the main hall, but can't figure out how to get in and out undetected?"

"Was I in intelligence last time you checked?"

"Come on Starscream," the first speaker prodded, "you're in good with Megatron."

"That doesn't mean that he gives me the ins and outs of the intelligence reports," Starscream retorted.

"Seems sorry intelligence to me," the first Decepticon muttered.

The crowd began to disperse, with a quick glance Illusionna saw the rain had stopped. She edged her way toward Starscream and his two friends, until she caught Starscream's optic. He leaned against the wall on his shoulder and folded his arms against his chest plate.

"Well hello there," he beamed her a smile she recognized from the Conduit.

Illusionna stared at him, suddenly unsure of what to do or say.

Starscream cocked his head to the side his smile turning amused. His two companions chuckled. "What're you doing out here if you live in the Dead End?" Starscream shifted his feet, but kept his shoulder on the wall.

What were you doing in the Dead End when you live here? she wanted to say, but that's not what came out. "I can show you how to get into Iacon's hall," she said quietly.

The snickering stopped.

Starscream stood up and put his hands on his hips. "I know how to get in," his voice was smooth and pleasing to listen to. "The problem is getting in undetected." When Illusionna said nothing, he took a step forward, "Can you do that?"

Illusionna took a step backwards as he came toward her. He stopped, "Can you?"

"Yes," she answered him.

"You can, huh?"

Illusionna nodded.

"What's your name?" Starscream asked.

"Illusionna," she said slowly.

"Pretty name," he told her, holding out his hand to indicate she come to him. When she didn't move, he motioned to the Decepticon. on his right, "this is Skywarp," then pointed to his left, and "Thundercracker."

Illusionna nodded to each of them.

There was a moment of silence before Starscream asked, "How do you know how to get in there?"

Illusionna smiled back at him, confidence surging though her. "I know a lot of things."

He chuckled, "Want to make a deal?"

"What kind of deal?"

Thundercracker and Skywarp chuckled. Starscream's smile broadened, "What do you want?"

"Energon," she answered before he had even finished the question.

Thundercracker laughed, "She knows what she wants."

Starscream continued as if he hadn't heard him. "How much?"

Illusionna was silent for a moment, she hadn't expected that question. "12," she answered, keeping her optics on Starscream's.

"12!?" Skywarp was incredulous. "What are we a rationing station?"

Starscream glanced at him, and then back at Illusionna. "All right," he said slowly. "12 energon cubes it is."

Skywarp made a guffaw and Thundercracker held his had up to his mouth and chuckled, "Where do we deliver them?"

"To Spanner's house," Illusionna told him, taking a step backward.

"When?" Starscream raised his voice, as if the step extra pried them apart.

"Whenever," Illusionna turned to leave, and called over her shoulder, "I'll be there."

She jumped over a puddle of neon green liquid and heard Skywarp say, "What the hell is Spanner's house?"


	5. Chapter 5

The house, or what was left of it, was eerily quiet when Illusionna returned home. She could hear sounds beyond the hearing of the others whom she lived with, her make up being specialized for intelligence gathering. But no sounds, other than the whirring of the workings of her world, came to her no matter how she tried to stretch her audio receptors.

She poked her head into the workshop, it was in its usual disarray. _'Organized chaos' would probably be a kinder term._ Illusionna smiled to herself at the thought. The half built body, propped up near the wall, with those two cameras that had never gotten covered by faceplating or lenses, looked at with lifeless emptiness. It reminded her slightly of the Autobot she'd seen in the hole with Ji'Shada, and she looked away from her half-formed sibling with a sense of dread. _Where is Spanner?_ She began to feel a sense of desperateness creep up on her.

The workshop, while having no door to the outside, did have a door to the downstairs, as well as to the main living area on the ground floor. It lead straight into Spanner's personal chambers, a quick avenue for the scientist to either retire to his personal space, or work as he pleased. Illusionna had rarely been his chambers, as Spanner seemed to be rarely in them. She walked down the stairs and emerged on the far side of his small suite.

She saw him lying on his berth, laid out flat as if on a repair table. The light in his optics was dim, his face peaceful. She could hear the faint hum of his systems running, even more quiet than normal, a faint sound barely caught and only if one was listening for it. The room itself was gray, a dingy place, like the rest of the house, like the rest of the Dead End, like the rest of his life.

It was disconcerting, seeing him lying there, prone. She could hurt him if she wanted. He had no defenses, no way to counter any kind of attack in the position he was in. She reached out and took one of his hands, examining it. The yellow of it seemed a little dingy up close, she could discern the dark color of the wires and under-metal showing through his knuckles. But his hand units were so skilled, they created people, living beings. A flash of the half constructed body upstairs appeared in her inner optics. That was just a body, it could be an anything. She could make it, make it a droid, make it a maid, make it a garbage can. But he, her Spanner, he made bodies into living things. These skilled yellow hands made magnificent things, things that no other being on Cybertron was capable of making. He would finish his project, he could finish it, she knew it. He could do whatever he put his mind to. A great rush of affection waved over her, starting at her chest and spreading through her arms and torso. As if summoned by her emotion, Spanner's optics slowly regained their light, and he turned his head toward her. He smiled, that beautiful smile that he shared so rarely these days. "Lunae," he sat up. "What are you doing here?"

She laughed, "I live here," she answered.

He returned the laugh, a sound that set Illusionna's audio receptors on edge with joy. "Yes, you do," he said, "and I am glad you are here."

Illusionna stretched her faceplates with her smile.

"I have an errand for you to run," he opened a small compartment in his arm, and took out a communique chip. "I need you to take this to Alpha Trion."

The smile vanished from Illusionna's face. "Alpha Trion? In Iacon?"

He held it out to her, "Yes," he said, "Alpha Trion. In Iacon."

"Oh," her voice rose to a whine, "that's going to take ages!" She snatched the chip from his fingers, and stood up, turning toward the door back up to the workshop.

She began to stride away, but turned back when Spanner called out gently, "Illusionna." She looked at him. "I love you," he said.

The smile returned to her face, "I love you, too."

**OoOoOo**

Illusionna rang the announcing buzzer at the dwelling her information told her belonged to Alpha Trion. She had met the old Autobot several times before, sometimes at Spanner's house, sometimes in other places, and once she had simply run into him on the street while out loitering in Iacon. He had greeted her warmly each time, surprising her when she'd met him by herself. He seemed very forgetful to her, though he'd never given her any real indication to think that he was. Without Spanner as a reminder, she had simply assumed he would not recognize her. But he had, asked about both Spanner and Wind Rider, stroked her shoulder in a fatherly fashion, and then been on his way. Illusionna had never been to his house, though. In fact, she'd never been this far into the city-state of Iacon, in person anyway, her energy reserves never being at full recharge, she had not wanted to make the journey without a real cause. She could gather information as any input port on the planet. She could get information about Tarn from smack in the middle of Crystal City. _If_ she could get past the security measures and as long as the mainframes were connected in some way. So physical proximity to information at hand was a mute point, in her mind at least.

Iacon was prettier than she'd thought it would be, especially from the messages she'd managed to eavesdrop on in the system. It was still lit, glowing faintly with the energy the planet naturally possessed, a slightly golden glow on the cityscape around her. A pale imitation of Spanner, but a lighthouse compared to the Dead End. It was not as tall as Polyhex, she noted, the towers were not so high, and the skies were not filled with flying things as they were in Decepticon Territory. Everything was concentrated on ground-level, a few levels above it, and she wondered if, like the Dead End, they were active under the ground levels also. Didn't just vagrants and misfits live under the ground level? She'd have to look that information up sometime.

The door slid open, and a femmebot, white with red highlights and a medical symbol on either shoulder, stood before her. Her body armor was flawless, the white not showing a speck of dirt or debris. Illusionna could not detect a single dent on her, her colors were vibrant and bright. "Hello," she smiled down from a gray face, and her blue optics glowed gently.

It took Illusionna a moment to regain her senses. She'd expected a speaker to come on and ask who she was, and why she was here. She even half expected to be sent away. But this femme had simply opened the door, smiled at her, said hello, and waited for a response. "I'm here to see Alpha Trion," she managed to squeak out.

The femmebot laughed, and moved aside for Illusionna to enter. "Come in," she said, "I'll go get him."

Illusionna stepped inside and the door slid closed behind her. The room into which she'd entered was a large receiving room, meant to house many people, made obvious by the numerous chairs that lay in no discernible pattern that Illusionna could make. She'd never seen a receiving room so large in a house. Did Alpha Trion live in a community building? Why had she just imported the directions to his place of residence when she plugged into that port, and not looked into anything else? _You're getting slack, _she berated herself, _you need to sharpen up or you'll be one of those mechs on the streets in stasis lock._

"Alpha Trion," the femmebot called down a hallway that led out of the receiving room. "You have someone to see you." The femmebot turned to Illusionna, and did her quick once over with her optics. "You aren't hurt are you?" she asked in a suddenly worried tone.

Illusionna registered her internal temperature rising at the realization that her body armor was not in as complete shape as the femmebot's. "No," she said, "I was sent here with a message."

The femmebot looked relieved, and smiled her gentle smile again. "Oh good." She turned back down the hallway, "Alpha Trion!" she called again.

"I'm not deaf, Lancette," a deep, gentle voice drifted to Illusionna's audio receptors down from the hallway. "I heard you the first time." Alpha Trion emerged from the hall, his blue optics as bright and merry, Illusionna was sure, as when he first came online untold ages ago. She had heard tales that Alpha Trion had spoken to Vector Sigma, back in the times when Vector Sigma was spoken to, but that would have meant the old Autobot had been around since the beginning of time. And she doubted that. While his chassis was an old model, a very old model, it didn't look prehistoric. She figured that early Transformers must have been drone-like in appearance, and Alpha Trion didn't look anything like a drone. In fact, he wasn't drone-like at all. His chassis was slender, but not too slender as to denote an alt-mode of delicacy or smallness, like her own. He did, however, have an air of knowledge, like he did, in fact, talk to Vector Sigma when Vector Sigma could be talked to. Perhaps that is where the rumor started. _A mech can do a lot with how they carry themselves, _she knew that from experience. "Ahh_,"_ he smiled when he saw her, "Illusionna, what brings you all the way out here?"

Was her nonchalant lack of visits to this part of the planet more obvious than she thought? Did he know that the expenditure of energy to get here was too high for her to come gallivanting over whenever she, or Spanner, felt like it? "Spanner sent me," she said. "He told me to give you this." She opened her storage compartment and took out the chip. She held it out to him.

"Oh yes," Alpha Trion took the chip from her and held it up, as if doing so would cause it to divulge its information, "Spanner is onto something very big, with that device of his. It will change the world." He looked up at Illusionna's faceplate and chuckled, "Have faith in your Creator, child." He reached out and cuffed her on her chin gently with the tips of his knuckles. He looked into her optics and smiled. "He is a master at what he does."

_He is a master at what he does_, Illusionna kept her thought to herself. _He's a master at starving people._

"Oh!" Lancette beamed a huge smile on her pale gray faceplate. "You belong to Spanner? It will almost be a family reunion later on!" She giggled.

"Hardly, Lancette," Alpha Trion turned, and motioned to be followed. Illusionna wasn't sure if it was directed at her or at Lancette or at the both of them, so she dutifully followed the old Autobot down the hallway. Better to be shooed off than to be thought of as rude for not obeying.

"What is happening later on?" Illusionna asked. "And will someone of Spanner's be there?"

Lancette laughed out loud, "Oh, you silly thing, as if you don't know your lineage!"

Illusionna's optics flared slightly, but she didn't look at Lancette to direct it at her. Of course she knew her lineage. She was the creation of Spanner, and Spanner was the creation of...She has no idea who Spanner's creator was, and it niggled her slightly that she had never considered the question before. Spanner had simply...always been there, like the Cybertron itself. And who else belonged to Spanner besides Wind Rider and herself? She knew that he created other Transformers. She'd been told before that he was very lucky, as far as his success rate with Vector Sigma inferring life into his beings. Why hadn't she ever thought to ask who these other people were?

They turned into a small room, with a hologram projector in it. Alpha Trion inserted the chip into the projector, and on the little round port, a schematic appeared. Illusionna instantly recognized it at as Spanner's interdimensional space portal transporter. It rotated slightly, numbers flashing across the schematic and then the entire thing stopped. "Beacon needed to complete transport", it flashed, rotating in three dimensional space. "Container needed to protect cargo."

She'd come across Cybertron for that?! _Slag_, she could have just told Alpha Trion all that information, instead of being worried about transporting a stupid, old fashioned chip full of information!

Illusionna huffed out, a loud hiss emanating from her cooling ducts as her internal cooling system kicked on. Lancette looked at her compassionately. "It's frustrating isn't it? Seeing him do all that hard work."

Illusionna made her face a blank slate, and squared her thin shoulders. _Frustrating seeing him do all that hard work? Who puts energon in our fueling tanks? Me! Who traipsed half way across the world to get this stupid chip here? Me! Who is the one who has to worry about everything while Spanner stays locked up in his laboratory working on a transporter that will take eons to get right? Me! _She wanted to scream, she wanted to distort her faceplate to such a degree that the alloy cracked and her chest, where her voice box resided, would burst from the sound.

"You're a good little thing," Lancette reached out and stroked her face, that same, horrible look of compassion on her face. _I don't need your pity,_ Illusionna wanted to spit the words out at her. _I can take care of myself better than you ever could._

"She is," Alpha Trion rubbed her shoulder, the one free of the camera. "Come one, then girls," he sounded chipper, as if he'd received information he'd wanted. "We have to rest up before our big meeting."

_Rest up? Big meeting? Who rested up for a big meeting? What big meeting? _

Lancette led Illusionna out of the room and down another hallway, and stood before a door. She pressed her hand against the lock, and it opened neatly for her, and she motioned for Illusionna to enter. "You'll want to be on full form for the meeting, there will be lot of people you know there," she said. "It must be happy synchronicity that you showed up when you did." She beamed that smile again and Illusionna wanted wipe it off with a fist. "Just in time!" Lancette then turned and left, the door closing behind her.

_What in the world is she talking about?_ Illusionna asked herself, turning to face the interior of the room. She stopped cold.

The room was empty.

Except for a berth to lie on, and a small desk with a port to put a screen to deal with information, the room was empty. Illusionna realized her mouth was hanging open, and shut it with a click, before turning a full 360 degrees. How could Alpha Trion have an empty room? An entire empty room, just for visitors? With nothing in it? Not used as something else in the meantime? Just a visitor room?

Illusionna sat down on the berth, and tried to sort it all out. Did Lancette live with Alpha Trion? Was Alpha Trion so rich, that he could have an entire room with nothing in it? But the house in which they were staying was only a few stories tall, did it go way underground too, is that where the size of it was? In Polyhex, toward the middle sections where the wealthiest citizens lived, the dwellings were so high that a mech had to fly out of them. She had heard from other Decepticons, listening when she shouldn't have been, that in richer provinces, the buildings were even higher than in Polyhex. Yet, this Autobot, he had enough wealth that he had an entire empty room!

She examined the berth, and saw a recharging port on it. Lying down, she connected to it, _At least I can make up for what I lost on the way here._ Upon making the connection, her own sensors indicated her fuel level at 30%, then her internal monitors flashed, "Energon depleted, disconnecting." A flood of panic waved through her as she tried to figure out how she went from 30% to 0%, when she felt the disconnection, and her own internal monitor stated once again, "Fuel 30%".

She laughed out loud, and sat up. The recharging port was empty, not her!

She glanced at the door, and then at the berth, and slouched. She was stuck in this room, and she certainly wasn't going into rest mode, big meeting or no big meeting.

Her optics fell on the information port on the desk, and she felt a little sting of guilt as she considered it. It was a tiny plug, most mechanoids probably didn't have an interface in which they could physically plug into it. But she wasn't most mechanoids, and she did have an interface which would physically plug into it. Before getting up off of the berth, she scanned the airwaves,

She caught a staticky private transmission between two Autobots, but when she cleared out the fuzz, she discovered they were talking about how to best repair a streetlight. A larger sweep left her with nothing. Alpha Trion and Lancette must have been "resting up for the big meeting", because she picked up nothing from either of them.

_Well, I'll just have to take a look around through a physical connection._ She got up, and extracted an interface cable from her torso. Plugging it into the interface, she immediately prepared herself for evasive maneuvers against the security system.

But there wasn't one.

_That's not right,_ Illusionna was suddenly uneasy.

There wasn't even a request for a passcode. Nothing. Complete and unobstructed access, as if she was entering a public informational space.

She moved carefully, fully expecting a trip somewhere, but there wasn't any. She had access to files and files and files of information. Personal information about Alpha Trion, Lancette, projects they were working on, communiques they had sent and received, and routes out to other information. _This couldn't be possible,_ she thought.

She followed a route out of the immediate area, and found herself in a large "atrium" with hundreds and hundreds of "alcoves" off of it. Each alcove was stuffed full of information, most of it, at first glance, useless _(Who_ _cares how many communications took place in the phi section of Iacon on that day? What did the communications say?_) and sure enough, another "alcove" off of that one had the communications themselves.

She glanced in each of the alcoves, very much like walking through an auditorium with rooms off the side. One of them had the information for the weapon caches the Autobots had amassed. Aside for the one that Illusionna already knew of, they had only two more, one on the other side of the planet, and another smaller one closer to Polyhex. All of them were stolen from the Decepticons.

In another of them, she noticed Spanner's name, so she ventured inside the file, and perused it.

At first, she wondered why Spanner's name would be mentioned here, but then her immediate thought was of a communication with Alpha Trion. But this didn't have Alpha Trion's name attached to it. It was a list of items, attributed to a Cybertronian scientist named Spanner. Only it couldn't have been her Spanner. This Spanner had created buildings, beautiful works of functional art, deep within several Autobot provinces. He had designed an immense arena, in the heart of Tarn, a Decepticon city-state He had discovered a new way to detect energy signatures in subspace, a new way retrieve materials from subspace for better fluidity and more consistency. This Spanner had created Autobots, Autobots to whom Vector Sigma had given sentience. The string of names hung before her: Shadow Racer, Signcheck, Septer, Cipher, Tailgate, Wheeljack, Wind Rider, Illusionna. Who were all these mechs? And why hadn't she ever heard of any of them?

On her periphery, she picked up an airwave transmission from Lancette, and retreated back to the port and unplugged. She'd lost track of time, _Bad mistake, you're making all kinds of bad mistakes,_ she chided. Illusionna, Lancette called, you up?

Illusionna went to the door, to be there when Lancette opened it, but to her surprise, is slid open when it sensed her near, and she saw Lancette walking down the hall toward her.

Lancette chuckled, "You must have had a good rest." She had that smile on her face again, only this time it didn't make Illusionna angry, so much as confused. "You were in your room all this time."

Illusionna did not admit she was in the room because she hadn't expected the door to be unlocked.


	6. Chapter 6

Illusionna had assumed that the "big meeting" would be in the entrance hall, which had seemed more than big enough to her for a meeting. It wasn't. The meeting was held in a different room, at least four times the size. And it was a big meeting.

The only gathering of people that Illusionna had seen that was larger was a sparking ceremony and the talk she had witnessed, not too long ago, at the auditorium by the Decepticon decrying against Optimus Prime.

And here he was, he would keep Cybertron in the dark ages. He had paid no attention to her during the gathering, which was good. The less she was noticed, she more she could notice. He was a large mech, and handsome in a rugged sort of way. Whoever built his body had a good optic for aesthetic. Flanking him was a white and blue Autobot with a visor for his optic lens named Jazz. Jazz had cuffed her shoulder and said, "Hey kid," in a sweet way when he came in the room. On the other side of Optimus Prime was an Autobot larger than Optimus, in a red, white, and blue chassis named Ultra Magnus. He didn't seem he was aware of any of the people as individuals, but rather as a whole group. He had said nothing at all the entire time he'd been there, but merely stood beside the Autobot Leader. Next to Jazz was an Autobot, in an old fashioned chassis, boxy and red, named Ironhide. He had looked her over, and then said disgustedly, something about "Neutrals who don't pull their weight." She sent a little energy spike toward him on the airwaves, still burning inside at the insult. She thought it was cleverly enough hidden, but when Ironhide shook his head with a confused look on his faceplates, Jazz's optics found her in the crowd. Still smiling, he shook his finger at her and shook his head. She looked at the floor and hid behind the Autobot in front of her.

As everyone got settled, the Autobots in the front of the room began to talk about what they were going to do about their energy crisis. _Stand in line, like everyone else,_ immediately came to her mind. How many times had she heard that phrase in The Dead End? They discussed new ways they could extract energy from the planet, from universal radiation. One particular Autobot kept going on about how they could harvest solar energy, if they only had a sun from which to harvest it.

Gathering nothing from the meeting, Illusionna decided to tune into the airwave transmissions in the room. None of them were public, but none of them had anything more than a minor security attached to them. It was nothing to listen in. Many people were complaining about the content of the meeting. At least she wasn't the only one bored out of her energon. She chuckled at her own joke, and the Autobot in front of her turned around and glared. She looked at the floor again.

She picked up a communication between Wheeljack and an Autobot named Pipes on a private line. It took almost nothing to get into the private conversation, there was only the most minimum of locks on the frequency. They were talking about how to put together a coil generator that took energy from the atmosphere, and they needed to have something ready for the next Big Meeting.

_Boring_! Illusionna withdrew from the private line, and looked about and listened for something that might prove a bit more interesting. The phrase Big Meeting kept popping up in people's private communication, and it annoyed her slightly to realize that was the official name for this type of event. _I can come up with something better than that._ _And I've never been to a Big Meeting before today._

She decided to concentrate on the apparent leaders at the front of the room. Optimus Prime was giving a speech, and his private lines matched what he was saying outloud. The big 'Bot next to him, Ultra Magnus had nothing going out of his private frequencies, but he was open to all frequencies coming in. She didn't get the impression he could hear what others were saying (a few were saying things about him), but was surprised at the range of his of open abilities. She considered poking him through the airwaves, the way she did Ironhide, but decided against it. Jazz might pick it up again.

She turned her attention to him, and prodded his private frequencies and he immediately opened up a line to her. His face was serious, and his attention was on Optimus Prime, but he said, Bored out of your mind yet? He gave the impression of a laugh.

Yes! Are these meetings always like this?

Yep. Gotta get through all the official business.

What official business do you have to do? Maybe she could gather a good tidbit or two in a more direct fashion.

Official business is no fun, he answered. I just come for the party afterward. You stayin' for the party?

It took Illusionna a moment to answer. Of all the replies possible, she wasn't expecting that. She had a brief image of herself wandering around Iacon while a party was going on in Alpha Trion's house. Since she was staying here, that was the only way she figured she wasn't going to the party. Yes, she sent him, yes I am.

He laughed through the line, though his face was still as serious as ever, Good choice! Optimus Prime then mentioned Jazz's name and motioned to him. Uh, time to be official. He began talking about transportation issues within the Command Complex, his face still carved into a serious demeanor. He kept the line between he and her open, but it only broadcast what he was saying out loud, as Optimus Prime's did.

When Jazz was nearing the end of his little speech, the crowd of Autobots in the room began to slowly buzz with excitement. She couldn't catch from anyone's private conversations what the buzz about it. However, her own excitement began when Jazz stopped, and moved to the side, to reveal a huge huge energon tank, with several refueling conduits in it.

Everyone else seemed to know the ritual of what was about to take place, they moved out of the way to make room for the energy keg. Illusionna had only seen these at the rationing lines, when they dispensed energon to those mechs who had to stand in line for it. Here was one that a mech could connect to!

"We share energy," Alpha Trion said, coming to stand next to the keg, "to show our unity. Until All Are One!"

"Until All Are One!" the Autobots cheered back at the old mech, who smiled and moved out of the way.

The Autobots gathered around the keg, in what originally seemed like a haphazard fashion, but eventually it evened out to a line. Each person must have known in what order they were to get their turn, for Illusionna didn't notice any elbow nudging or foot edging in the line. Optimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, and Jazz stayed at the front of the room, where Alpha Trion joined them. However, they were now at the back of the line.

Illusionna, at the edge of the group, fully expected at least one, if not all, of the four of them to come and take their places in front of the keg, but none did. Surprise caught her when a small, yellow Autobot connected to the keg first.

She watched in anticipation as he refueled, but almost as soon as he'd connected, he disconnected, and let the next person have their turn. _They aren't refeuling,_ Illusionna felt a sudden surge of hunger, followed by panic, which she had strain to keep from surfacing. She knew what her faceplates looked like, she was always very consciously aware of her body language. Her face was impassive, showing nothing, neither serious, nor joyful, and especially not anticipatory. Anticipatory meant weak, and she was many things, may be even weak, but none of them would ever know it. However, the panic faded and left only anticipation, anticipation for energon.

Wheeljack eventually came to the keg, and motioned for her to join him. She didn't move from her spot, so that Lancette, right next to him, called, "Come on, Illusionna. It's your turn." Illusionna heard through some of the private lines she was monitoring a few grumbles, but nothing out loud that her audio sensors would have picked up. She walked to the keg, and Wheeljack stepped back, as if he was protecting her spot in line, and motioned with his arm for her to take her turn.

She connected to the keg, and her internal sensors showed her, _fuel 30% capacity. _The felt the influx of energy, and kept her optics on the keg. _Fuel 35% capacity. _Somehow, this felt like a private thing, yet everyone else had done it in full view of all in the room. _Fuel 40% capacity. _ She felt everyone's optics on her. _Fuel 45% capacity._ She heard, on several private lines, comments similar to, Is she gonna get off, and let someone else have a turn, or take all of the energon? _Fuel 50% capacity. _With concerted mental effort, she disconnected from the the tank, and stepped back. She made her optics meet Wheeljack's, and then Lancette's, both of whom smiled at her. Wheeljack stepped up to take his turn, and Illusionna slunk back to where she had been before, at the edge of the room.

Once everyone had a turn at the keg (whether it was empty or not, Illusionna wasn't sure), Alpha Trion wheeled it out of the room, and several of the Autobots went out with him. All of the ranking officers, except for Jazz, left with him, along with Wheeljack, Lancette, and some other whom Illusionna did not know the names of. As soon as they'd left, the lights in the room lowered, and on all of Jazz's frequencies, a steady beat of thumps, with some whistles and beeps thrown in for good measure, surged through her mind and audio sensors. Illusionna smiled, _Music!_

She must have sent it on the private line to Jazz without knowing it, because he answered on it, _Of course it's music! _Then on a public line, _Now it's time to dance!_

A cheer went up from those who remained in the room, and several started clapping to the beat that Jazz was thumping. Other Autobots began to dance, moving their legs, their arms, transforming to their alternate modes, and then back to robot mode again, Illusionna watched for a while. It wasn't the same kind of dancing she'd seen before. In the Dead End, in the one occasion she had experienced dancing, all of the mechs moved in the same way. A leader would begin the movements, and each would try to copy him or her. Sometimes s/he would try to trip up the other dancing mechs by going fast, or doing a move that they were quite sure, with the body types of the dancers, that the others could not imitate. And while some of that was happening here, most of it was much more haphazard. Each individual would dance their own dance, in the midst of the others dancing their own dance. There was no coordination to it, no togetherness. Yet, each mech made room for those dancing around him or her, and no one bumped into anyone else. Suddenly, she was knocked out of her reverie by an Autobot taking her hands and dragging her into the small crowd.

She was stuck it the middle of a bunch of dancing Autobots, so she didn't feel she had much choice but to join them. She began to move slowly, fighting a strong urge to imitate someone. She forced herself to move, until it felt more natural, to move in this inharmonious way among all of this discordant movement. Then, like a switch was turned, time took on a different meaning. Autobots came up to her and mirrored her movements, and she mirrored theirs, stamping, and kicking, and twirling, and swinging. She joined hands and arms with others, and spun about like a gyroscope. She got into transforming contests with still others, changing into her alternate mode of a recording camera and back to mechanoid again. Faster and faster and faster, until either they or she could keep up on longer, and they ended up on the floor laughing, half transformed and servos aching.

And then, the beating rhythm stopped, and the lights came back up, and everyone came to a stop. "Party's over, 'bots," Jazz said. "We all have work to do tomorrow."

_I don't,_ Illusionna shot at him.

He didn't even look at her, and spoke out loud, directing Autobots toward the door, but he answered her with a laugh in the line, _Don't worry. Alpha Trion will find something for you to do. And if he doesn't, Lancette will. _"Off with you," he said out loud, gesturing to the door. "Time for a rest."

She went out of the room, down the hallways to her room-for-the-moment. _These Autobots do an awful lot of resting._ The room was quiet, very quiet after the thumping on all channels of the dance. She laid down on the berth, and absent-mindedly connected herself to the recharger. It hummed, as it began to pump energon into her. _Fuel 35% capacity_, her internal monitors read. She lay in a slight daze, her heating system working to cool her off after so much physical activity, her mind wandering to movements and the thumping, until the charger cut off. _Fuel 50% capacity._

She sat up, _I wonder what it feels like to be fully charged._ The thought was an errant one, one that she did not let herself think. It crept out from where she usually kept it hidden, her vigilance drained by evening's activities. She knew what it felt like to be fully charged, she even knew what it felt like to be fully charged and have the others around you at less than full capacity. However, for a moment, she let herself wonder if it felt any different than when one first came online. Of course one was at full capacity then. She hadn't savored it, she hadn't made an effort to remember what it felt like. She hadn't known, then, that she wouldn't see her internal monitor ever say, f_uel 100% capacity,_ again.

She felt the prickles of anger begin to surface, and a thought she hadn't thought before, something more ugly and sinister than, _I didn't know, I didn't work to remember._ She stuffed the thought back down where it normally lived, underneath more rational and practical thoughts. It wasn't good to dwell on such things, Spanner and Wind Rider, both, had told her so. It only led to more irrational and impractical thoughts, and one shouldn't waste their precious energy on things like anger, jealousy, or greed. It was better to dwell on things that could be done, here and now. Like walking through Autobot databases, shoddily guarded, full of semi-useless information that might be worth something to someone at some point.

Illusionna hooked herself up to the port, and began to virtually wander around Iacon.


End file.
